Been thinking about this for a little while now. I know there have been a lot of complaints about the slow pace of Q2A development. One of the main reasons on my part is that of course I need to earn a living so paid work comes first.

So I'm wondering, how would people feel about contributing to a Kickstarter campaign? If you're not aware how it works, we decide on a project (e.g. develop a particular plugin), set a goal amount (e.g. a couple hundred dollars), lots of people contribute a few dollars each, then when the goal is reached I take the time to implement the feature.

First, I want to start by saying I am not stopping or slowing down development at all. Any goal reached will be for an increase in work above what I am already doing. If this idea goes nowhere then everything will continue as normal.

I haven't decided exactly what the project would be (that's partly the reason for this thread) but I have a few ideas. It could be an amount to pay for X days or weeks of solid work on the core. In other words, faster development of v1.8/1.9.

It could be to develop one or two plugins that have a wide "market" and could be included in the core. Two popular requests we've had are for an API plugin and an expanded social login plugin (that includes Twitter/Google log in as well as Facebook).

There are lots of possibilities. What do you think of the idea? Would you contribute, and how much? What kind of 'project' would you prefer? Please let me know, whether you love it or hate it.

Something else to consider is a hosted Q2A service. Many people don't want to have to go through the hassle of setting up a web hosting account, updating the site when new versions come out and simply want a Q&A site based on a fixed monthly amount, e.g. $9/month.

I would be naturally inclined to accept this concept, as well as contributing (as previously mentioned by another member, even just a mere $10-20 USD amount, as I saw fit, sometimes more, of course.) It would be nice if there was a way to implement this concept along side of the normal Q2A core (and your personal plug-in) development, so effectively there would be little change seen by most members, but those that were willing to contribute to your "fund" ;) would see that they could influence certain things in a more 'timely manner' when necessary, so to speak. It seems both moral and ethical to me, seeing as how you are 100% donating your time in the first place! Uhm...is there really anyone that denies this! Speak now or forever hold onto your despicably selfish piece of "truth"!

Geez guys, throw the helpful gentleman, which you all count on day-after-day, a trivial-sized financial bone, won't ya'! For the love of God, man!

8 Answers

Great idea, I like it. Maybe give it a try or even implement a plugin into q2a that is a collector of donations :) but true, http://kickstarter.com/ reaches more people. On the other hand, if they don't know about q2a, they will probably not donate for a plugin.

Probably it would be cool to have a list of bugs and a list of plugins and people can donate on the things that are most important to them. Then we had a list of priorities by donations:

The reason for using Kickstarter was not really for reaching more people (though that may be an added benefit), mainly it's just for handling the payments. Probably less of a grey area legally than getting everyone to give me money directly via Paypal or something.

It's a nice idea. Although you should have done something like this much before but its better late than never.

Surely I would like to help as some of my websites are about to lay fruits soon enough. It would be much better if whole community would come forward to this idea.

Just one more thing, let this idea be on Q2A for longer than a month as old members are not coming on Q2A everyday so maybe sooner or later they will also see this post and would like to reply on this.

For the plugin part, in addition to your ideas please introduce a "Pinned Post" feature which can help community by pinning posts like this one and road map to top. Otherwise Gideon will not use any third party plugins on Q2A and posts like this will only get lost with time.

The idea was to pay me (and only me) for X amount of extra work. Everyone else would be free to contribute to Q2A exactly as they do now, and I would continue to do development in my spare time too.

I did have a concern before posting the question that others could be put off contributing if they are doing it for free and someone else is getting paid. Of course I'd much rather have multiple people collaborating for free than one person being paid with no other contributors.

I understand what you mean now. It is quite fair since you are investing your time and effort, other contributor should not have any issue if community member wants to pay on it.

Just only one thought, in this way it could be unfair to the contributors who involved in core contribution (core means source code and no theme or plugin). For instance pupi1985. As far as I know he had contributed so much things to the core.

So in such case, it would be unfair to those contributors. In fact, I am not seeking anything for my contribution for theme or plugin and whatever is included within the core package (SnowFlat) and on my Q2A Market Store Free Products will always be free and also will keep contribute for future. If anyone want to give me reward personally they can make donation to my PayPal Account.

However, you should also take it into consideration that you should not implement any feature which other developer has already developed as a premium product otherwise it could be unfair to those too.

BUT this is just my thought and may not others so you are free to do what you think.

I may be mistaking, Ronlaw, but I don't believe that that is mentioned in the proposed concept whatsoever. Everyone has access to everything, and as fast as everyone else. The only true difference is that the kind gentleman, who does all the dirty work whilst you sit back in your easy-chair, is willing to offer more of his time to a particular project (be it a plug-in, or what-have-you, OR a feature in the Q2A core that enough people want to have changed)

So, NO, no one should have early access to anything, and they wouldn't - ever! Simply think of it as the ability to subvert not have to contact Scott personally and pay for him to work, let's say, five (5) EXTRA hours a day, to get a special plug-in or feature completed a little sooner! And, contrary to what he will probably tell you, to keep such a knowledgeable integral person able (in the long term) to keep contributing to this free OS project. There should be no conflict of interests involved, and if there (hypothetically) were, we could very easily call 'him' on it. No?